Electric Vehicle Regional Emissions & Demand Impacts Tool (EV-REDI)

Synapse’s Electric Vehicle Regional Emissions and Demand Impacts Tool (EV-REDI) models multiple impacts of transportation electrification at the state or provincial level. With electric vehicles on the rise, there are enormous opportunities to make transportation more sustainable and modernize the electric grid. States, cities, utilities, and regional authorities are planning for a future in which electric vehicles play an important role in the transportation sector. Synapse’s EV model quantifies the impacts of increased electric vehicle penetration on electricity sales, greenhouse gas emissions, and avoided gasoline consumption for all 50 U.S. states, Washington D.C., and 10 Canadian provinces. 

EV-REDI relies on high-resolution data from publicly available sources to assemble state- and province-specific information on the historical adoption of EVs and develop trajectories of future electric vehicle deployment. The tool integrates with electric sector dispatch models such as EnCompass to inform capacity expansion and hourly dispatch and pairs with AVERT to examine high-resolution CO2 and criteria pollutant emission impacts on the grid.

EV-REDI allows us to apply a technology adoption curve to existing historical trends to understand the impacts of electric vehicles if current trends in adoption are sustained over time. Alternatively, EV-REDI can be used to analyze specified future levels of electric vehicle sales in absolute terms or in percentage terms, or set the total number of electric vehicles (stock) in absolute terms or percentage terms. Under either approach, EV-REDI then quantifies both conventional and electric light-duty vehicle sales and stock, and the resultant impacts on electricity sales, tailpipe emissions, gasoline consumption, and other metrics through 2050. EV-REDI accounts for:

  • State- and province-specific trends in light-duty vehicle stocks, sales, and driving patterns
  • Vehicle ownership lifetime
  • Vehicle-miles traveled (VMT)
  • Changing efficiencies of both electric and conventional vehicles
  • Changing trends in vehicle preferences
  • Distinctions between driving patterns of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and purely battery-powered electric vehicles

As the deployment of electric vehicles increases, policymakers are contending with the hourly impacts of EVs on the grid, including considerations relating to peak demand and rate design. Synapse used EV-REDI to build forecasts of electricity demand from transportation electrification in a report about the future of energy in Illinois. 

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